If you're referring to the fact that the old search facility is missing, which enabled searched by "keyword" and "poster", yeah, that's a bummer. I used them a lot, and I don't see any replacement anywhere, so that's a major decrease in functionality for me.

On at least the News / Activism page, when I hover my mouse cursor over the new search box and left-click, a yellow box magically appears that includes a dropdown menu that allows selecting between keyword, users, titles and Yahoo for your search parameters. It does this for me on my Win XP Pro system with IE as well as Opera; I haven't tested with other browsers. I'm assuming that it's a Flash thing, so if people don't have that installed it may not appear. I'm no programmer so don't take my word on that aspect of things though.

Hey, you're absolutely right. Dunno why it wasn't visible before, but I now see what you're describing. That will do. Thanks!

From a GUI standpoint (which I've done for over 25 years now), that's called "information hiding", and is considered a no-no (although it's done all the time). While this allows a window to be uncluttered, it also keeps you from seeing what's going on. Most folks like to have their controls all laid out for them whether they're in use or not -- witness how many folks dislike having to know to right-click on things to see options that otherwise you wouldn't even know existed.

It's like driving a car where the instruments and controls appear when you hold your hand near them, and are invisible otherwise. Not many buyers for that.

Hey, you're absolutely right. Dunno why it wasn't visible before, but I now see what you're describing. That will do.

You probably didn't see it before because the last time you tried it, it may not have existed. I've noticed several subtle changes that have gradually crept in days after the obvious GUI overhaul first appeared....such as the welcome return of the individual thread hit-counters. It's nice to know how many people are reading a thread because that gives a considerably more accurate indication of the amount of interest it's generated than the number of posts on a thread. In years past, I've posted threads that may have had 20 or so posts but had over a thousand page views.

It seems that gradual changes are ongoing around here.

Thanks!

You're quite welcome and I'm delighted if that's been of some help :-)

From a GUI standpoint (which I've done for over 25 years now), that's called "information hiding", and is considered a no-no (although it's done all the time). While this allows a window to be uncluttered, it also keeps you from seeing what's going on. Most folks like to have their controls all laid out for them whether they're in use or not -- witness how many folks dislike having to know to right-click on things to see options that otherwise you wouldn't even know existed.

Perhaps balloon-tips will appear, such as what some software applications have? Or even an updated "Help" page. Since development appears to be ongoing, perhaps such things will also magically appear in time if it seems that a significant number of people are having trouble with it.

But, I agree on the 'information hiding' thing....in this case it makes me wonder how many other 'goodies' I'm missing just because I haven't input the appropriate random and accidental commands to discover them.

It's like driving a car where the instruments and controls appear when you hold your hand near them, and are invisible otherwise. Not many buyers for that.

I am very happy about the fact that 'most' things pertaining to computing and the internet don't have the same penalties for user and designer errors that automotive stuff does :-)

But, continuing with the automotive analogy, I would certainly like it if Ford and Chevrolet would offer a similar number of free functionality and safety-related upgrades as Microsoft and other software vendors do. "OH! We've invented airbags! Let's retrofit them into all of the older cars that we've produced over the past ten years, and let's do it free of charge because it saves lives!" :-)

You're quite welcome and I'm delighted if that's been of some help :-)

Now all we need to do is to come up with a way to force people to do a search before they post identical threads, read more than just the titles before they respond to posted articles, be polite, etc. etc. etc. LMAO :-)

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